Things My Mother Said…Long Ago

My Mom died in 1983. We weren’t very close for a lot of reasons I guess,but since she has gone I have come to realize what a remarkable person she was.
And every day I tell her. Things come back. Things I did not see or understand back then. There is lot to say on that but today is all about actual words from her.

She said:

In the morning we close the blinds on this side of the house and in the afternoon on this side. No such thing as air conditioning then. 1954

Some day people won’t need money. People will just use a card. For the life of me I could not figure this one out. It was long before the concept of debit. 1958

Someday a woman won’t need a man to have a baby. 1957. Since I did not know the facts of life I wasn’t sure what this meant except I knew there were Mommies and Daddies and they had children. I could not conceive why a Mommy would have children without a Daddy.

Life is hard. You have to work. All of us learned a great work ethic from our folks. I started working at fourteen, through high school and nursing. It is who I am.

Don’t look at me in that tone of voice young lady! I could never figure out how she knew what I was thinking. So much for the poker face.

Life isn’t fair. Get over it. I didn’t know if I believed this one for a long time.

This woman worked in a factory most of her life raising five of us. My Dad was super and I idolized him. But it wasn’t until I grew up that I realized what she gave, what she sacrificed to raise us and how hard it must have been.

She was Super Woman.

RIP Esther Byers Jenkins Gingerich. For you have earned your rest and are still adored by all of us here.

I hope she knows now. I am now the age she was when she died and am so lucky because my sons always tell me they love me. They think I am a little crazy but still they love me. Hey maybe the crazy is why!

This is lovely and I totally get it. My mum died a few years ago- right in the middle of my teenage rebellion when I definitely did not appreciate the things she said or did. She too gave me much veiled and then, incomprehensible advice such as, don’t ever get down on your knees-except in church.

I loved this. There are so many things that we don’t realize about our parents until we can have an adult-to-adult relationship. I never had the chance for that with my mom. I lived across the country and by the time I moved back, she started to get ill and wasn’t herself anymore. Leading up to her death and thereafter, people have told me many wonderful things about my mom that I didn’t know about her.

Hi Chris. So many of the things you write about strike a chord with me. I didn’t realize the fantastic woman my Mother was until she retired into a nursing home with Alzheimer’s. She was certainly the power in our house although she let Father think he was. She managed to feed and clothe us all on very little money and surrounded us with love. She died in 1996 and she too is sorely missed.
Judith